It is a corner of a foreign field that will – if not forever then certainly for one night only – be the red half of Manchester. "Fergie's Field", on the outskirts of Rome, will tomorrow night play temporary host to a big screen and 3,200 fans hoping to roar his team to back-to-back Champions League victories.

An enterprising entrepreneur has taken over some fields and a party venue on the edge of the city to provide a temporary home to the legions of Manchester United fans who have ignored warnings from organisers and the Foreign Office and arrived without tickets for the showpiece final against Barcelona.

It has been billed as the dream final, pitting Barca's purist footballing philosophy against what many pundits have called Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest ever squad.

While the number of fans travelling without tickets is expected to be down on previous years due to the recession and repeated warnings from Uefa about the lack of big screens in the city and an alcohol ban, thousands are still expected to flood into Rome without a ticket.

Conor Nolan, the 32-year-old property developer turned events organiser behind Fergie's Field, said the idea was to give fans a place to get together and drink, and provide the ticketless with somewhere to watch the match on screens.

Emerging from a meeting with the chief of the Rome police, Nolan said 3,200 fans had pre-booked and 1,000 would camp in the adjoining fields. "We're doing [the authorities] a favour, taking away the people who would otherwise be on the streets," he said.

Nolan said he convinced the police chief to "look at it very favourably", but not to lift a ban on alcohol sales due to take effect at 11pm [TUE] tonight. The bar was doing a brisk trade in lager at €3 a pint. But none of the customers appeared to know the taps were due to be closed.

Asked how he thought they might react, the site's Italian manager, Alfredo Iorio, winced. "It's going to be hard," he said.

The ban, which will cover alcohol sales in shops and ban drinking outside, has been introduced as one of a number of measures designed to quell the possibility of any serious disorder. Previous matches involving English teams have provoked attacks from groups of Roma-supporting Ultras at various known trouble spots.

With tickets still available at up to £3,000 on some websites today, Uefa repeated its warning to fans not to purchase tickets from touts.

It said a number of forged tickets had been detected on the streets of Rome in recent days and warned that anyone purchasing one would not be allowed in because they would not contain sophisticated chip technology introduced for the first time by organisers

As players and managers from both sides went through their pre-match media routines, fans sweltering in temperatures of up to 33C were scouring the streets for tickets and taking in the local sights.

"The atmosphere is good. The weather is good," said Matt, from Canning Town in London. "The only thing is there don't seem to be so many fans," said Dave, another Londoner, from Bethnal Green. "I think it's the economy. I think a lot of fans will fly in and straight out again."

Many millions more will watch on big screens and in their living rooms around the UK, Europe and the world. The match is also crucial for ITV. Having invested hundreds of millions in live football rights, it will be hoping for a bumper ratings that top the peak audience of 14.6m that tuned in to watch United triumph over Chelsea on penalties in Moscow last year. With figures for Sky's simulcast included, more than 16.6m watched last year's shoot out.

If United win, it will be their fourth European Cup, putting them one behind rivals Liverpool. There will also be a financial boost. An economic study by Champions League sponsors Mastercard said victory would be worth £96m.

Sun, sweat, and a search for tickets

Some time today it became clear that I had, like thousands of Manchester United fans, landed in possibly the worst place in Europe to watch the Champions League final. Rome.

Travelling with only the hope of a ticket is bad enough, but there is also the fact that there are no big screens in town, no booze (prohibition started at 5pm), and precious little sympathy from Rome's police and fans. For us there was just sweltering heat and outrage at Uefa for giving such a tiny allocation of tickets to real fans instead of the mythical "football family" of corporate sponsors and neutrals.

My flight (on Monday from Bristol) was packed and few people had tickets. Most were prepared to try the black market; some spoke of "just being there", despite Foreign Office travel advice and tales of buttock-slashing Ultras on the hunt.

Rumour and counter-rumour swirled around. The Campo di Fiori piazza was said to be off limits; some even reckoned the Trevi fountain a potential trouble spot. The Colosseum has become a totem of football's corporate hell. Uefa flunkeys on Monday enjoyed a concert by Andre Bocelli there. Outside there is the Uefa Champions Festival, where official match balls are on sale for €110 each.

Desperate fans met here and today Roma fans were offering tickets for £1,800 each. But if officials are to believed, nobody will get in with tickets in someone else's name.

By the Colosseum, They had travelled to Manchester two years ago to see their team beaten 7-1. A small, sweet revenge. A United fan was – out of kindness, he said – selling a pair to a father and son for £1,200. If officials are to believed, they won't get in with electronic tickets in someone else's name anyway – though most dismiss this as scare tactics. Many fans are veterans of Barcelona 99 or Moscow 08 – when few failed to wangle their way in. But hope in Rome is fading. Earlier at the airport a group of Americans were overheard complaining they knew no one playing. A Malaysian businessman arrived with a son wearing an Istanbul 05 T-shirt (Yep, when Liverpool won). Would I sup with these devils? You betcha.